Ivy Coach College Admissions Blog

Stephanie Sigal helps NYC students prep for the ERB, a kindergarten admissions test.

While Ivy Coach does not offer NYC ERB tutoring, we recommend Stephanie Sigal, M.S., CCC-SLP. The ERB is known in NYC as the kindergarten admissions test for private schools. However, the ERB (Educational Records Bureau), is really the agency that administers a test that they call the ECAA – the Early Childhood Admissions Assessment. It’s ike the College Board for the SAT…just high school students don’t walk around saying that they have the College Boards on Saturday. It’s possible their parents and grandparents do, though. It shows their age.

The ECAA uses subtests of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI). Presently, the ERB is using the WPPSI-III (for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade), but an updated WPPSI-IV was released in September 2012, which is reportedly more child friendly and fun. It is anticipated that the ERB will make the switch in the near future. Presently, eight subtests of the WPPSI 3 are administered to preschoolers. These include four verbal subtests (vocabulary, word reasoning, comprehension, and similarities) in addition to four “performance” subtests (picture concepts, matrix reasoning, block design, and coding).

In the coming days, we’ll go through what these various subtests of the ERB entail. In the meantime, have a question on NYC ERB prep? Send questions our way by posting below and Stephanie will answer them. Looking forward to hearing from you.